yawningbread.wordpress.com Archives - 17 February 2012, Friday

With the sacking of Yaw Shin Leong from the Workers’ Party, announced 15 February 2012, the parliamentary seat of Hougang is now vacant. Prime Minister Lee Hsien-Loong, however, said he “will consider the matter carefully,” when asked the timing of the by-election. Offering a totally ...

It’s getting to the point where if you find homosexuality offensive and do not wish to be “confronted” with it, you’re going to need to withdraw from the modern world. For example, there’ll be films and music videos that fill the entertainment pages that you can’t watch. If your frien...

DEFAMATORY STATEMENTS PUBLISHED ON YAWNINGBREAD.WORDPRESS.COM 1. We act for Mr K Shanmugam. 2. We refer to the following comments that you have made on your website, yawningbread.wordpress.com, under the Responses section of the blog posting entitled “The Media and Yaw Shin Leong” pub...

Today carried a report of my dialogue with ITE students yesterday, noting the strong desire of the students to get a diploma. It quoted me as saying, “if everyone can move up, we will not have enough ITE graduates out there in the workforce”. Unfortunately, this was taken out of conte...

Another, perhaps less obvious, feature of the present debate is the silence of those citizens who agree that eldercare centres are needed and that there is no perfect answer as to where to locate them. I am pretty sure there are plenty of Singaporeans who can see the issue in this lig...

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This week saw two milestones in the American march to gay equality. The federal court of appeal for the ninth circuit delivered its decision Tuesday that California’s Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, since it violated the United States Constitution. Here’s a 42-minute long press co...

A while back, I made a prediction that as opposition parties make headway into the political mainstream, new media will increasingly make those parties the objects of scrutiny. The oft-repeated complaint of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and its government that new media tends...

This is almost a replay of the break-up of the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) in 2010. The SDA then comprised the SPP, the Singapore Justice Party and the the Singapore Malay National Organisation (PKMS). But Chiam’s main antagonist was none other than SPP’s own Desmond Lim, who ...

Nonetheless, Alfie’s Home is a seductive story. Lots of gay teenagers are unhappy — not because they are gay, but because they are socially ostracised. But unless they think through it, they seldom make the distinction. All they know is that they are unhappy, and when a simplistic sto...

I am pleased to share more recent findings which show that our National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP) driven by the Health Promotion Board (HPB) has resulted in 14,000 fewer cases of lung cancer and 4,700 fewer cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease between 1986 and 2006. H...

“MHA had planned to make these announcements on 25 January 2012, but as news of the investigations had already appeared, MHA decided to advance the media release by one day,” said the statement issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday, 27 January 2012, desperately denyin...

. . . low performance expectations coupled with narrowly defined vocational outcomes raise uncomfortable issues. It is impossible to talk of those at the bottom of the Singaporean educational system without acknowledging the dialectical tensions that exist within the wider society and...

. . . low performance expectations coupled with narrowly defined vocational outcomes raise uncomfortable issues. It is impossible to talk of those at the bottom of the Singaporean educational system without acknowledging the dialectical tensions that exist within the wider society and...

The Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, bemoaning Singaporeans’ anti-social littering habits is “currently exploring some technological solutions,” reported the Straits Times, 17 January 2012. I wonder what they’re thinking of. Perhaps more closed-circuit cameras located all ...

If you have spare time this Chinese New Year, go see the digitally animated version of Qingming Shanghe Tu at the Singapore Expo (hall 3). It will be on until 6 February 2012. Admission for adults: $21; closes at 9 p.m. However, do take a barf bag with you. The Qingming Shanghe Tu, a ...

You rightly asked why the pay of those in the financial sectors is being controversially over-represented to an obscene degree – 5% representation in the actual workforce but up to 38% in the committee’s 1000. My guess would be that the committee instead of using rational data to spon...

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One of the most striking factoids I’ve heard in a while was this: In Singapore, a construction worker earns about 9 percent of what a doctor earns, compared to Hong Kong where such a worker earns about 25 percent of what a doctor does. Ho Kwon Ping, executive chairman of Banyan Tree H...

Excellent article. Makes you wonder about the integrity of the person who was intentionally re-painting the findings in order to satisfy some superior, rather than fulfilling the greater duty of presenting factual interpretations that would help his or her country by informing future ...

I’m curious as to whether the Auditor General’s role is purely one of overseeing financial matters, or could the office expand so as to also hold Government departments and Ministries accountable to their (somewhat fuzzy) “mission statements” and “corporate social responsibility (CSR)...

Clementi is the worst place to start from when going downtown, as I recall from a news story a month or two ago. Tampines also figured in the hellish-commute stakes. A figure of 20 minutes was mentioned, increasing to a little over 30 minutes at peak hour, if my recollection’s any goo...

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He had waited patiently to be served. Foreign workers from India have largely resigned themselves to be almost invisible to Singaporeans, unless when Singaporeans wish to make an issue of their (unwanted) visibility. But today, he was alone, and not a threat to our beloved racial mode...

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Moving on to larger acts of silencing, non-profit organisations in Singapore face such pressure regularly, particularly those whose mission is not just to serve the needy by dispensing direct help, but who also seek to correct the systemic flaws that continue to disadvantage the targe...

What I find troubling with the above analysis is the tacit equation of copying behaviour with stupidity. Surely copying is not totally passive. People make choices as to what to imitate and which ideas to take on board. In many situations, one is presented with different new ways of d...

Arts curator Pang Khee Teik kicked open the issue of homosexuality in Malaysia almost single-handedly by organising Seksualiti Merdeka a few years ago, a multi-event festival promoting an individual’s rights to autonomy in matters sexual. Owyang Wen Feng, styled Malaysia’s first openl...

In an update to my blog, I clarified that I wasn’t trying to suggest that TOC was wrong to highlight Seng’s remarks. However, they should have stuck to the facts – an MP and union leader making extremely ill-judged remarks, which he attributed to an SMRT rep. Halimah did this in her r...

I think there should be two Commissions of Inquiry rather than one. The question of technical lapses that led to the massive train breakdowns last Thursday and Saturday are completely separate from that of crisis management. Commissions of Inquiry, while usually led by a judge, need t...

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As we approach the year-end, several people have asked me for my assessment of change in the People’s Action Party (PAP) government in the six months since the general election. The PAP found its vote share reduced and in its aftermath, several ministers left the cabinet. Likewise, I ...

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The irony is, Singpore richest people are getting wealthier, including our top civil servants. Imagine, 11 per cent of our citizens are millionaires. There is a mad rush with investing in more properties to grow the wealth even faster. The same is taking place in the upper income, mid...

The chief talking point this weekend would certainly be the breakdowns in our metro network. There were three this week. First, the Circle Line came to a halt between 06:00h and 06:40h Wednesday morning, with partial service for the next four to five hours. Full service resumed only a...

A short distance from our lunch table, a publicity event was going on. There was a stand with posters and several volunteers handing out flyers. Not many passers-by showed interest, but if a family had a toddler in tow, they would be compelled to stop, for one volunteer was holding a ...